


A Ball of Fluffy Steel

by Ookomix



Series: Star Wars One-Shots [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Childhood, Droids, Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-19
Updated: 2016-12-19
Packaged: 2018-09-09 16:20:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8899096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ookomix/pseuds/Ookomix
Summary: Poe and Ben found a droid on an abandoned wreckage and decided to keep and repair it.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Here, take it, it's for aaaall the droid-lovers!

It was late in the evening, maybe close to eleven pm, and yet Poe hadn’t showed up the whole day. There’s no way he could have forgotten he promised Ben they would go play in the shipwreck near the forest. No way. The young boy was worried something happened to his friend. Ben cautiously tip-toed towards the door and left his empty house behind, decided to find his bestest and only friend. After having bypassed the house’s security, it was easy for the boy to leave, and Ben hoped his sharp instinct would help him find Poe. He followed his senses.

After what seemed to be an eternity of aimless wandering, Ben heard a faint but spooky noise, and he grabbed his knife with both hands. He was too close to the abandoned and forbidden shipwreck to be at ease, especially at night, and alone. Inhaling heavily, Ben chose to speak out loud rather than cower.

“… Poe?”

A familiar head appeared from behind an ancient A-Wing stored there and left behind, and Ben found himself breathing again. Poe seemed surprised, and a little embarrassed.

“B… Ben? What are you doing here? It’s the middle of the night!”

“I know! What are _you_ doing here, you promised we would come here together!”

“Ah,” Poe sighed and climbed onto the spaceship to help Ben settle next to him. “I totally forgot, I’m sorry, Benny.”

“It’s okay,” the younger boy sniffed. “I know you’re light-headed and immature. It happens.”

A burst of laugh escaped from Poe. He gently hit Ben in the shoulder.

“I’m _older_ than you, you should show respect!”

“We’re only two years apart, you know? And you are thirteen, you are a child.”

Poe shrugged and said nothing, but he was still amused. He and Ben stayed silent for a moment before the younger boy asked:

“So why did you forget?”

“Oh! Right,” Poe replied. “Come, I want to show you something. You’ll see, it’s amazing.”

Poe jumped off of the roof of the A-wing and landed on the ground near a hidden place from where a dim glow was slightly lightening the ambient darkness of the night. Piqued by curiosity, Ben followed him quickly and knelt near the light. Poe had arranged an entire place under one of the forgotten corpses of the remains of a decade old war. And in the middle of this hideout, a broken, weird looking droid. Ben frowned.

“What is this thing?”

“It’s great, right? I found it in a garbage, poor thing. It’s a droid! A real droid! And it’s not like R2 or 3PO, it looks… I don’t know…. It looks...”

“It seems to be from a more recent upgrade, it clearly is one of the newest versions,” Ben finished.

“Yes. Please talk like a normal kid.”

“Fuck you.”

“Much better.”

Ben sighed but he approached the destroyed body of the droid. It must be very little, from what he could guess with the remains. And very _round_ , and it was honestly shocking for Ben who knew droids where supposed to _adhere_ to the ship’s metal. To fix it. With a round body this droid could certainly not do his tasks properly.

“Maybe that’s why he got bumped in a trash,” the younger boy eventually said out loud.

“What?” Poe asked.

“It’s round, Poe. It’s completely round.”

“I know, right? What an adorably ball of fluffy steel.”

Ben turned around to look at his friend, and couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow when he faced the stupidest smile in the whole galaxy.

“Do you plan to rebuild it?”

“Yes. Why not? I’ve tried to figure out how to do that for the past hours, but so far I just don’t know how to do that. If you have an idea, please do tell me. I’m feeling pretty open-minded, even for your ideas.”

“Ahah,” Ben simply replied, deadpan, before turning away to look at the droid’s remains. “Seems complicated. I don’t know if you can fix it. You’re not an engineer, or even a mechanic.”

“And you are?”

“I’m not,” Ben thoughtfully said. “But I know a great mechanic.” When he raised his eyes towards his friend, Ben was beaming with delight, even if he wasn’t actually smiling. Poe started to smile for both of us, and he ran to grab as much parts of the droid as he could, and stacked them on a little trailer. Ben helped him, and they took the way home. When they arrived at Poe’s home, the older boy’s father was waiting for them, worried.

“Poe?! Where were you, I looked for you everywhere!”

“Don’t worry, dad, I wasn’t very far,” Poe lied. “Ben was with me, we just didn’t see time fleeing!”

“That’s a pretty lie, son,” Kes replied immediately. “Leia called. It seems like Ben ran away hours before you two got here. No alibi this time. Just… Go to bed. Ben, you can stay here for… let’s say what’s left of the night. Your mom and dad will be here in the morning.

“Thank you, mister Dameron!” Ben gratefully said before following Poe. “You’ll see,” he started again after the two boys where out of hear-shot. “If my father comes, then Chewbacca will be there, too. And he’s _great_ with droids.”

 

 

“I can’t believe you ran away from home,” Han said, a scandalized scowl on his face. Chewbacca was not far behind him, and his tall frame was completely blocking the warm sun of Yavin IV for the children. Rather than answering his father, Ben turned to his favorite uncle and smiled.

“Say, Uncle Chewie, Poe found a droid, and I was wondering if you could help us repair it. Please, say yes?” He turned to his father. “Please, dad?”

Han’s eyebrows disappeared over his hairline, and he looked up to look for any help from Poe’s dad, but Kes was only amused. With a grunt, Han dived his hands in his pockets.

“Why not… But only if you promise to stay at home when you’re alone.”

“I can’t promise that. It would oblige you to promise me not to leave me alone for so long again.”

Ben knew his father didn’t want that kind of conversation, and he was right. Han simply sighed, then poked Chewbacca. This one replied with a low growl and a nod, and suddenly Poe was bouncing in the room and yelling how happy he was. It warmed Ben’s heart. So, as soon as everyone had their breakfast, all the adults found themselves settled on the ground around the remains of a weird looking droid.

The task wasn’t easy. The parts were bend, broken and dirty, but Ben hadn’t lied; Chewbacca knew his way with droids, and he quickly took the lead on the fixing operation. Poe was so happy he couldn’t control his energy. He said a lot of bullshit, but the air was nice, and the conversations were light-hearted. Of course, the children weren’t interested in what the adults were talking about, but they had a lot of fun playing puzzle with the droid. And when the day was over and the sun, shying away behind the forest, the droid was almost repaired. It was… more odd-looking than ever, with its twisted pieces and its stains of… the lesser they knew, the better.

But the team did a great job.

“There’s nothing we can do more, now, kid,” Han said, getting up with a grunt. “It… well it looks as viable as the falcon so I guess it’s a good start, but it needs a new battery cell. Maybe the core is not damaged enough to be entirely replaced, but it will need fixing as well.”

“Do you have one?” Poe asked. “A battery. Do you have one?”

Han looked at Poe, then Ben, then Poe. He eventually shrugged.

“I might have one, but I don’t know where and the Falcon is a mess.”

“We’ll find it,” Ben replied with a gesture of his hand to show his father’s concern was nothing. He caught Poe’s hand then ran to the Falcon, and as soon as they were inside they headed towards the loading room of the Corellian YT-1300. It was, indeed, a mess. With a shared glance the two boys came to the same conclusion, and they rolled up their sleeves.

It was night when they got out of the war zone that was the Falcon’s loading room. The adults were in Poe’s house, probably talking about boring things. Poe directly went for his new obsession, and he waited for Ben to be near him before he carefully opened the droid’s hatch.

“Okay, so this needs to be changed. Then what?” Poe asked, maybe more to himself than to his friend. Ben stayed quiet. They managed to disconnect the battery before replacing it, and something unexpected happened.

The hatch automatically closed itself, and the droid rolled slowly back and forth, emitting a series of beeping sounds. Ben’s eyes went wide.

This droid seemed… confused. Sleepy, slow, like a being waking up from a coma. Poe was irradiating with joy and surprise.

“Hey, little guy,” the older boy whispered, too surprised to do anything else. The droid quickly turned his magnetized head to Poe. He slowly rolled to him…

Then he headbutted him.

With a surprised yelp, Poe fell back, and his startled sound alerted the three men in the house. Han Solo went out first, his blaster in hands, and he pointed it at the droid.

“No!” Poe shouted. Ben was barely containing his laugh. “No, I don’t think he wanted to hurt me!” Poe continued. To his side, the droid was quietly beeping, his head had slipped to the side of his body. He looked concerned.

Han sighed and handed down his weapon while Kes went quickly near his son to see the damages.

“See? No harm done. It’s just a bump, I’m going to have a bruise, but nothing more.”

Kes glared at the droid.

“You’re only up for a minute, and you already have broken my son?”

The droid sheepishly lowered his head. Everyone in the assembly knew for that very moment that Poe’s heart melted in a puddle of mush.

“Aaaaaw look at him! He’s cute!”

“ _He_?” Ben asked. “It’s a droid, Poe.”

“No, he’s a new friend, Ben. You wouldn’t talk about R2-D2 like that, right?”

“… Fair enough.”

Chewbacca came closer and knelt to be face to face with the droid, and he carefully listened to the series of binary beeping the children couldn’t understand. After a while the Wookiee nodded and explained that the droid had presented himself as a _BB-Unit astromech droid_. He had been abandoned by an ungrateful human and just fell asleep in a trash. Poe hugged him.

“Don’t worry, little guy, I’m here now, and you’ll be nice and cozy, here! You need a name! Ben, he needs a name.”

“Why do you ask _me_ , Poe?” Ben winced.

“Because you’re good with names! Come on, Benny! Besides, if it wasn’t for you, I would never have managed to repair him,” Poe added, smiling brightly at Chewbacca. The Wookiee laughed and poked Han who, unprepared, nearly lost his balance.

“Watch out, you big fuzzball!”

Ben sighed and looked at the orange and white BB unit.

“Well… he’s cute, and bouncy. He needs a bouncy name.”

“A bouncy name it is. And what would that be?”

The bb unit beeped excitedly at the children, making circles around them. Ben smiled lightly as he eyes were following the swift dance of the droid.

He found a name.

“Let’s call him _BB-8_.”


End file.
